new member, and just wanted to share a thought on wc4

The Bearcat is cool except that its guns are so widely spaced that it's hard to get both port and starboard guns to hit a smaller enemy.
 
another question about wc4 when yo kidnap the border world space lab and scientist why does she seem so friendly at first, afterall she is a hostage of some sorts. yet she was allowed to roam freely on the ship and maniac hit on her. I never understood that
 
wanna know whats sad I have beaten WC4 at least 10 times and never have gotten the bearcat

Unless you're particularly fond of the Hellcat V, you're not missing much with the Bearcat. Both are very generic fighters that don't excel at any one thing.

another question about wc4 when yo kidnap the border world space lab and scientist why does she seem so friendly at first, afterall she is a hostage of some sorts. yet she was allowed to roam freely on the ship and maniac hit on her. I never understood that

I've wondered this myself! I've always assumed (though its never stated) that she was a Confed civie that maybe ended up on the wrong side of the border when the UBW announced its independence. Or maybe she was a Confed sympathizer. Or maybe she just wanted to hitch a ride home to the core worlds. Your guess is as good as mine.
 
Unless you're particularly fond of the Hellcat V, you're not missing much with the Bearcat. Both are very generic fighters that don't excel at any one thing.



I've wondered this myself! I've always assumed (though its never stated) that she was a Confed civie that maybe ended up on the wrong side of the border when the UBW announced its independence. Or maybe she was a Confed sympathizer. Or maybe she just wanted to hitch a ride home to the core worlds. Your guess is as good as mine.


but then she is shot on the base the black lance is on, after helping blair escape
 
Unless you're particularly fond of the Hellcat V, you're not missing much with the Bearcat. Both are very generic fighters that don't excel at any one thing.

I'll disagree on this one; the Bearcat is a lot of fun. I love the challenging gun placement and the fact that it's a dedicated dogfighter in a way that the war-era designs weren't. (And it's decidedly a highly advanced fighter without being a press-to-win fighter like the Excalibur or the Lance.)


I've wondered this myself! I've always assumed (though its never stated) that she was a Confed civie that maybe ended up on the wrong side of the border when the UBW announced its independence. Or maybe she was a Confed sympathizer. Or maybe she just wanted to hitch a ride home to the core worlds. Your guess is as good as mine.

It’s a little confusing, but we can definitively decide her allegiance: Dr. Brody was actually Captain Eisen’s handler in the colonies (I avoid saying Union of Border Worlds as they hadn’t declared independence before she was taken.) She was the one sending data to him (you can see him hiding a message about this when Blair visits his cabin just before the mission to capture her), and also arranged for the Intrepid to be in position for his rescue.

If I had to venture a guess, she likely maintained her cover upon capture, either because it’s a bad idea for spies to reveal themselves to be spies or because she assumed she was completely safe on the same ship as Captain Eisen (whose imminent escape she’d organized personally.) She probably had no idea the Confederation would capture a spacelab and force her to continue her work so quickly!
 
The Bearcat is also the fastest craft in WCIV, in addition to having somewhat superior weapons and shields/armor to the Hellcat (or indeed to any non-torpedo-carrying craft in WCIV). The wide spacing of the guns is the only really sucky thing about it--if you are not going to be using torpedoes or the Leech or Stormfire guns on the Border Worlds craft on a particular mission, then you are probably better off flying the Bearcat than anything besides the Lance (Dragon).
 
wanna know whats sad I have beaten WC4 at least 10 times and never have gotten the bearcat

I also seem to miss her regularly. You have to go on the missions in Speradon (pick Hawk) and choose to steal them in order for them to be available. Dunno why, but even if I go there I usually pick the other two missions (get Starburst/Coneburst and get Mace) over the Bearcat one. Must be worded quite unimportant or too risky...
 
It’s a little confusing, but we can definitively decide her allegiance: Dr. Brody was actually Captain Eisen’s handler in the colonies (I avoid saying Union of Border Worlds as they hadn’t declared independence before she was taken.) She was the one sending data to him (you can see him hiding a message about this when Blair visits his cabin just before the mission to capture her), and also arranged for the Intrepid to be in position for his rescue.

Wait, wasn't there also an email / letter to Eisen on the old WC4 website? Was this from her as well?
 
I also seem to miss her regularly. You have to go on the missions in Speradon (pick Hawk) and choose to steal them in order for them to be available. Dunno why, but even if I go there I usually pick the other two missions (get Starburst/Coneburst and get Mace) over the Bearcat one. Must be worded quite unimportant or too risky...

Heh, I always find myself avoiding the Starburst mission. It's just a weapon I was never really fond of. Even when Pliers improves it, I don't think I've loaded it up more than 3 times in all my WC4 playthroughs. I go for the Mace because I liked going after the Princeton. There's nothing quite like taking on a defenseless carrier. :p
 
It's not a coincidence that Paulsen showed up when he did, locking down the ship just before the 'capture the lab' mission!

(Dr. Brody is in the credits (and the script)... although her first name being Tuesday was added by Origin's web team, in honor of Creative Services writer Tuesday Frase.)
 
ok I wonder if there ever was a scene with her and eisen to explain things a little more clearly and it just got cut
 
I've just restarted my GOG fueled adventure with WC1 for the 90000th time. I'm still trying to get my joystick sensitivity and mappings right. At least I'd like to think that's the problem. The alternative is that my reflexes aren't what they were when I was in my teens... and that's just depressing. Now I know how Blair felt when he jumped in that Hellcat in wc4.

Re: Dragon/Bearcat/Everything Else: I always liked the Vindicator myself. Like others, I just found the Bearcat gun placement too strange. Though all time favorite thing to do in the game? Flying the Dragon, transfer all power to guns, set speed to 0, and shoot off the fusion gun just to watch the ship move backwards. Now THAT's power
 
I've just restarted my GOG fueled adventure with WC1 for the 90000th time. I'm still trying to get my joystick sensitivity and mappings right. At least I'd like to think that's the problem. The alternative is that my reflexes aren't what they were when I was in my teens... and that's just depressing. Now I know how Blair felt when he jumped in that Hellcat in wc4.

Re: Dragon/Bearcat/Everything Else: I always liked the Vindicator myself. Like others, I just found the Bearcat gun placement too strange. Though all time favorite thing to do in the game? Flying the Dragon, transfer all power to guns, set speed to 0, and shoot off the fusion gun just to watch the ship move backwards. Now THAT's power

I liked flying her but always thought the Vindicator was too advanced for the Border Worlds, great little ship but next to the Avenger and Banshee (which always looked old and somewhat decrepit) the Vindicator looked too modern for the budget of the BWS military. I guess with the Tachyon armament, she was a little bit like the Border Worlders' very own supership.

I also think @Bandit LOAF makes a good point about the Bearcat being something of a rarity in that she's an out-and-out dogfighter. She reminded me in some ways of the Rapier II - at least that's the closest ship I can think of in the series with regards to purpose; although arguably the Rapiers were not strict dogfighting vessels in that we saw them used extensively against capital ships and starbases in Wing Commander. The Bearcat differs from the Excalibur in that you're not guaranteed a glorious victory regardless of the enemy you face, there's a certain challenge to flying her. I'd say she's my second favourite ship behind the Thunderbolt VII.

If we're playing favourites with Wing Commander IV ships, I still think it's a damned crying shame Origin didn't resurrect the Scimitar for the Border Worlds as per the novel, instead of say, the Vindicator. Imagine taking on Confed Excaliburs in a Scimitar!
 
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I like the Beatcat very much, for the same reasons that've been already mentioned. It's a believable evolution of the wartime designs, a model to rule the vast areas of space in a post-war environment, advanced yet not too heavy / expensive. Suited for low-intensity patrol duties without being too much of a waste in this role (unlike say an Excaliur or Vampire) and able to play different roles, as coming from the Hellcat lineage, but still including space superiority. The F-35 of Confed so to speak.
 
I liked flying her but always thought the Vindicator was too advanced for the Border Worlds, great little ship but next to the Avenger and Banshee (which always looked old and somewhat decrepit) the Vindicator looked too modern for the budget of the BWS military. I guess with the Tachyon armament, she was a little bit like the Border Worlders' very own supership.

It seemed to me like the Vindicator was their "normal" militia fighter/bomber that had been in service already, but the needs of the conflict and their sudden declaration of independence meant that they needed both something faster and cheaper (the Banshee) and something heavier (the Avenger), so they pushed what they had into service even though it was not quite up to the same standard as Confed gear.
 
It seemed to me like the Vindicator was their "normal" militia fighter/bomber that had been in service already, but the needs of the conflict and their sudden declaration of independence meant that they needed both something faster and cheaper (the Banshee) and something heavier (the Avenger), so they pushed what they had into service even though it was not quite up to the same standard as Confed gear.

Yeah, it's important to remember the UBW as a political entity with a budget and such didn't exist at the beginning of WC4. They don't declare themselves to be the "Union" until a quarter of the way through the game, so their assortment of ships don't have to make sense in the same way as the Hornet/Scimitar/Rapier/Raptor did for Confed, for example. They didn't have one uniform navy and were just an assortment of militia units to begin with. Predictably, most of their stuff would be older hand-me-down junk, but you can imagine scenarios where surplus better-than-average hardware finds its way to one world, a rich sponsor in another area buys some nicer gear, and even other stuff gets stolen just like the Bearcats and Dragons that appear in WC4. The baseline is probably the Scimitiar/Ferret type stuff, and even ships like the Banshee and Avenger could have been late random additions to the Intrepid's lineup.
 
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